The discovered exoplanet, officially designated as LHS 475 b, is practically the twin of our planet in terms of dimensions – it reaches 99 percent of the Earth’s diameter. But it is several hundred degrees hotter because it is much closer to its star than any planet in the Solar System is to the Sun. It orbits its star in two days. The red dwarf around which it rotates, on the other hand, has half the temperature of our star.
The planet is located in the constellation Octantus, about 41 light-years from our planet. Despite this distance, scientists have tried using a telescope to determine the composition of the atmosphere, but they still do not know if there is any planet surrounding it. But some types of atmospheres can exclude it, such as a dense methane-dominated atmosphere similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan. They hope that new measurements, which they plan to make during further observations this summer, will provide answers.
“Webb is bringing us ever closer to new knowledge of Earth-like worlds outside the Solar System, and that’s just the beginning of his mission,” said Mark Clampin, chief of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
New picture
The star cluster, which appears as a pinkish-red cloud against the shimmering black of space in the Webb Telescope image, is located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy near our Milky Way. Astronomers have been studying this area because the conditions in NGC 346 resemble those that prevailed in the universe more than ten billion years ago.
